


A Wolf's Dilemma

by WarriorofallBards



Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Other
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-22
Updated: 2017-10-07
Packaged: 2019-01-04 03:15:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,182
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12160401
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WarriorofallBards/pseuds/WarriorofallBards
Summary: Ylwa, the mother of Vilkas and Farkas, lives with a feral werewolf pack and feels that something is missing from her life. A backstory of sorts for Vilkas and Farkas, focusing on their mother and her life. Where canon was available, it was followed. I don't own any of the characters or settings that were featured or mentioned in Skyrim or any other Elder Scrolls game.





	1. Chapter 1

Ylwa ran through the woods, picking up speed as she went. The damp, earthy smell of the forest floor filled her nostrils, along with the scent of the bull elk that she was tracking. In places, the silvery moonlight peeked through the canopy of darkened green leaves above her. She ran until she felt as though she was one with the wilderness around her, her paws coming in contact with the cushiony carpet of humus below her only long enough to propel her forward. The wind created by her speed whooshed through her fur. She breathed in the deep, invigorating aroma of the land, and allowed it to flow through her, both satisfying her and driving her onwards. She must keep running on, on, on, until all of her needs were met, or until she was so exhausted she didn’t care. She needed to run, to become one with the nature around her. She needed the thrill of the hunt – to find the choicest animal that she could – not an easy catch, but something that would give her a challenge – and to pursue it until it was hers. Then there was the other need – one deep down that she had not found a solution for in her nightly ventures. There was an empty space in her life, and this empty space drove her to go out and run, night after night. These runs had become a regular thing as of late – she would leave as soon as it was dark, and run and hunt until she had no energy left, dragging herself back home in the morning, finally spent enough to sleep.  
Sensing that she was nearing the elk she had been seeking, Ylwa slowed down and steadied her breathing. Once her breath was again light enough that she did not fear being overheard, she began to creep towards the elk. He was an enormous bull elk, with an antler span so large that he certainly had to be selective when choosing a path through this forest. Ylwa crouched down and observed him. He was lying down, his legs folded under him, asleep. Ylwa’s heart dropped a bit at how easy this would be. She could leap on him and rip out his throat before he even realized what was going on. But there would be no fun in that. The thrill that she sought was a long, challenging chase before a satisfying end to her hunt, with the prey struggling the entire way. She let out a low growl. Her prey lifted his head and began to move his ears about, assessing the danger of the sound he heard. Ylwa growled again, a bit more fiercely this time. The elk jumped to his feet and took off in the opposite direction. Ylwa ran through a thicket after him, intentionally making as much noise as she could. She smelled his fear as his heart rate spiked and he began to run at top speed. Good! She raced after him.   
Ylwa followed the elk for at least an hour, but possibly longer. Time passed differently when she was in a life-and-death pursuit. He eventually led her onto a plain that went on and on. After some time, Ylwa tired of pursuing him across the barren land, and decided to end her chase. She slowed down as they neared a pile of boulders, allowed the panting elk to pull away from her and eventually stop to catch his breath. As she hid behind the boulders, she slowed her own breathing down and then began to creep towards him again. As she slowly approached the elk, she noticed that none but the brightest stars were visible any longer. When she was several yards away and still unnoticed, she made a combination of dashes and lunges, ending in a massive leap towards the elk’s back. At that very moment, he took off in a run again, and she almost missed, just barely grabbing hold of his hindquarters. He nearly lost his balance as she dug in with both teeth and claws and hung on for dear life. He kicked at her and hit one of her hind legs. Undeterred, she pulled herself up onto his back and began to climb up towards his neck. The elk shook and broke the rear half of Ylwa’s body loose. As her rear legs went flying off the side of the elk, he was thrown off-balance and fell over. Ylwa used this opportunity lunge for his throat and end it all. Taking down a bull elk on her own was quite a feat. She wished someone had been there to witness her accomplishment, as surely no one back home would believe her when she told them about tonight’s adventure.  
By the time Ylwa had finished her meal, the sky was grey, and she could see strips of color beginning to peek over the horizon. Exhausted, she began to think about sleep. It was only thanks to the elk heart she consumed that she had not lost her hunter’s form already. There was no way that she could make it home before collapsing from exhaustion, so she decided to find a place to bed down for the day. Maybe her adventures tomorrow night would take her closer to home, so that she could drag herself back to her family in the morning.   
The openness of the plains that Ylwa found herself in made her feel unsafe, so she headed back towards her forest at a casual lope. On her way back, she smelled something that caught her attention. She changed her course and approached the smell. She found a place where the grass was all trampled down, and saw a few places where it looks like bodies had been sleeping, all surrounding a cold fire pit – a campsite of sorts. What piqued her interest, though, was that these didn’t smell like regular humans. Regular humans she has seen plenty of from a distance. This smelled like…. more of her kind? A different pack? She supposed that other packs could exist, but her family were the only others like her that she had ever heard of. She quickly moved along, not wanting a run-in with these others, and made a mental note to ask about the subject when she arrived home.  
Once Ylwa was deeply enough into the trees that she felt safe and relaxed again, she began to seek out an unused corner somewhere in the woods that she could sleep the day away in. She eventually found just the spot that she was looking for – a nice, cozy place (but what part of this cushiony ground would not be cozy?), hidden away from sight by some shrubbery. There was also a creek not too far away. Ylwa walked right into the creek and drank deeply of its cold, refreshing water. She then rolled around in the shallow water until most of the blood had rinsed out of her fur. There would be time for a more thorough bath once she woke up that evening. By that time, it was broad daylight out, and she was ready to settle in for some rest before she changed into her more vulnerable form.  
As she settled down in the nest of leaves and other soft, comforting substances that the forest provided, she closed her eyes and tried to fall asleep. Her muscles were exhausted and her mind was satisfied with the hunt that she had experienced, but that restless empty feeling had not abated. She would rest much better if it would go away, but instead it only grew worse with each day that passed. Eventually, she was able to shut her thoughts off and drift off to a light, fitful sleep.


	2. Chapter 2

When she awoke around midday, Ylwa had shed her fur and claws for skin, hands, and long, dark hair. She was parched, so she climbed out of her bed of leaves and made her way over to the nearby creek. She climbed all the way into the creek and drank deeply of its cool, invigorating water. She then washed herself thoroughly and scrubbed the blood out of the few remaining scraps of clothes that survived last night’s transformation. She walked back to her bed of leaves, laid down, and drifted off to the sounds of birds and other forest animals.   
The next time that Ylwa woke up, it was late afternoon, almost evening. She lounged on her bed for a bit, taking in the sounds and scents around her that assured her everything was safe. She was fairly hungry, and the need to run and hunt was again very strong, but it was too soon for another transformation. In addition to that, even though she felt much more vulnerable in this state, she had been warned time and again by some well-meaning relation or another that she should always wait until the cover of night before giving in to her beast blood. Eventually, Ylwa climbed out of her bed and made her way down to the creek for another drink of water. She then began meandering further into the forest, towards the location that her pack called home. In order to hold her gnawing hunger at bay, she picked and ate some berries as she traveled.   
About an hour and a half into her trip, darkness fell. Ylwa was still unable to transform into her wolf form, as her transformation yesterday had been a few hours after darkness had fallen. The birds and other daytime creatures settled into their homes for the night, and the nighttime creatures emerged. Ylwa traveled onward to the sound of hooting owls, swooshing bats, cheeping insects, and those not-quite-identifyable nighttime noises that can always be found in a forest.   
The forest seemed to have an energy of its own that informed the woodland creatures and those well-attuned to their surroundings when something was not normal. Ylwa, on full alert, felt when the atmosphere in the woods around her began to change, and she knew that something was coming. She quickly ducked into a bush and listened. Far off, she could hear rustling and footsteps. The footsteps were not quiet, as if the maker of the sounds had no interest in concealing their presence. A creature (or creatures, by the sound of it) who lacked caution, then. All the more reason to be careful. Soon, she saw three large, dark forms dashing through the trees a couple hundred yards away. Her own kind, it would appear, but no relatives of hers.   
Once the intruders had passed, Ylwa crept over to where the three strangers had passed by and sniffed the air – the same three whose old campsite she found that morning. Well, they appear to be gone now, she thought to herself. All the same, she crept back over to the bush and walked parallel to their trail, several yards away.   
Soon, Ylwa felt that her ability to change had returned to her, and quickly allowed the wolf to take over her human form. Bones crunched and popped and ligaments stretched and bent as her entire structure changed from that of a human to a large, hairy beast. Elated, she took off through the woods at top speed, delighted to be free from the confines of her human body. By this time, she was fairly hungry. So after a quick dash of delight, she began using her heightened sense of smell to seek out food. She could smell that there had been a deer nearby, but with a fawn. She had no interest in depriving a fawn of its mother. There had been a couple of foxes nearby as well. As the breeze shifted, she scented a rabbit – a terrified rabbit. She followed the breeze. As she drew near, she again caught whiff of the others she saw pass by earlier. They must have awoken the poor rabbit and scared it half to death, because rabbits aren’t usually up at this hour. While they are certainly flighty prey, their hearts are also not usually racing as fast as this one’s was. She decided to do it the favor of putting it out of its miserable, terrified existence by making it her early-evening snack.   
After making quick work of the rabbit that she found cowering in the bottom of a tree, Ylwa again ran off into the night. She ran faster and faster, until she felt that she was one with the forest she was flying through. She blocked out of her mind everything but the trees, the ground that her feet were barely landing upon as they launch her onward, and the wind - blowing through her fur, being pulled in and out of her nose as she breathed, and igniting pleasure sensors all over her body. As she discovered the trail of a young male deer, she instinctively turned toward the direction that he went off in. Oblivious to all else, Ylwa allowed her desire to hunt consume her entire being.   
After following the trail of the deer with an inhuman focus, Ylwa noticed a smell that seemed wrong. She scrambled to a stop as she disengaged her brain from the hunt just enough to begin to evaluate the situation. Blood. Someone else’s prey. As these thoughts pushed their way through, Ylwa came sliding into a clearing where she saw the three strangers gathered around a deer. Her deer. No. Their deer. As all three of them raised their heads from their meal and looked at her, she lowered herself submissively and began to back away from them, hoping that they would go back to eating and forget about this encounter. No such luck.   
The group of three strangers consisted of a female, a larger male, and a younger male. The larger male, followed by the female, left their prey and boldly approached Ylwa. She began to lower herself submissively to the ground, but then had second thoughts, leapt up, and ran at top speed in the other direction. The three gave chase.   
Ylwa didn’t know how long she had run, or how far from her home this run had taken her, but before too long, the larger male, she assumed the leader of the group, had caught up to her, and began running alongside her. Once she saw that he meant her no harm, she slowed her pace a bit to catch her breath, and the female pulled up alongside them as well. Their other friend seemed to have fallen behind. Eventually, the female stopped, sniffed the air, and veered off to the right. The male slowed and changed his course to follow after the female. He invited Ylwa to join them – to hunt by their sides. Generally reserved and rather distrustful of strangers, she shocked even herself by taking the stranger up on his offer.   
She really should head back to her family tonight, running up a river on her way back so as to hide her trail from these strangers. Her family, a pack of werewolves who lived outside of human law, had raised her and all of her cousins to be distrustful of strange humans. They never said anything about other humans who were like them, though. She didn’t even know that such a thing existed. She was pleased with her discovery. She was also pleased with the sensations she felt flowing through her body at the male’s presence. She sensed the same feeling coming from him that she had sensed on many males previously when they were near a female that they found appealing. She had seen what that feeling led to, and had even felt some of the males directing that emotion towards her recently, though she never allowed them to get any further than that. With this one, though, she felt a strange excitement within herself that ignited every part of her being, more so even than hunting did. And so she followed him.


	3. Chapter 3

Ylwa awoke the next day nestled up against the stranger, neither of them in fur any longer. Not even in the scraps of clothing that were not destroyed by a transformation. His two friends seemed to have disappeared. Well, this was awkward. Ylwa lifted her head slightly and began sniffing the air, afraid of waking the slumbering stranger beside her. In her human form, though, her nose was not worth nearly as much as in her other form. She couldn’t smell any water source anywhere nearby. Why would she have slept somewhere with no water? That was a strict requirement for anywhere that she camped out at after her nightly runs. Next question, where was her clothing? That she quickly located a few yards away. Mortified, she laid still and collected her thoughts before moving any further, trying to recall everything she could about what happened the night before – everything she could about this stranger beside her. She might need to use it against him.   
Last night was a blur. It was almost like the night when one of her cousins had brought home some “mead” and she woke up with a pounding headache and few memories the next morning. It seemed more likely that she had just given in to the wolf so fully last night that she was not humanly present for most of the night. She had experienced times before where she was so controlled by her beast that she lost all human consciousness. Her first transformation had been one of those moments.   
What she could recall was running with this stranger and his pack beside her. She had a faint, pleasant memory of taking down two animals with them….. or was it three? She recalled running in the plains that she had discovered yesterday morning. She didn’t recall when and where his friends had disappeared to. All that her mind was filled with was him. Had she? Yes…. Ylwa blushed with embarrassment. Yes, she had mated with him. She began to scold herself. He was a stranger, and she was supposed to become the mate of one of the leader’s sons. She had no interest in them, but they were the best prospects in her pack. Would she be able to go back to her pack after this? Was there some rule that she has to stay with him and his two stranger friends now that she had…. been with him? Certainly the twin sons of the pack leader who were supposed to be her prospects would not want her any longer if they found out. Would she be an outcast, not welcome any longer? Her mind was filled with thoughts of panic at being an outcast for the rest of her life.  
This stranger, though.... That restless feeling she had felt prior to encountering these others had been silenced by a desire for more of what she experienced last night. Ylwa blocked out the part of her that said this was a bad idea, and spent the next week or so running and hunting all over her woods and the regions beyond, accompanying and consumed with this new interest of hers.


End file.
